A Gorgeous Green Wall at Reykjavik City Hall

The recorded guide to Iceland on the bus noted that Iceland was really a misnomer, that the country should really be called Waterland, since there was very little ice outside of the big glaciers, but there was water everywhere. I feel like I have green moss growing on me after four days of hiking the Laugavegurinn trail there. In most buildings in Iceland, they fight the elements by covering buildings in impenetrable iron and steel cladding; in Reykjavik's City Hall, designed by Icelandic architects Studio Granda, they celebrate it with this lovely, mossy green wall.

Designed in 1987 after the firm won an international competition, the building is still controversial, with some saying that it doesn't fit into the historic core of Reykjavik, but it is impressive as you walk into town for the first time.

I stated before that there are two kinds of living green walls, Le Mur Végétal as designed by French botanist Patrick Blanc, and the Green Façades of Edouard Francois, where the plants have roots in the ground and do not need so much technology.

Studio Granda shows us a third option: Take a substrate that is local and appropriate (the volcanic rock), plant material that grows everywhere in the country (moss) and simply add water. Nicely done.Lloyd Alter/CC BY 2.0